One Reason To Stay
by Emma Arthur
Summary: "Why? Why would you give it to me?" Alex blinks, sluggishly. "You're trying to get all the pieces, right?" he says like it's the obvious answer to Michael's question. "Yeah, but...I didn't get the vibe from you that you approve." "It doesn't matter if I approve," Alex shrugs. "It's what you want."


[Brief mentions of war and explosion, PTSD nightmares]

This is my first fic in this fandom. Huge thanks to eveningspirit for beta-reading, and for dragging me into the fandom in the first place.

I hope you enjoy a good dose of Malex emotional hurt/comfort and actual talking.

* * *

Michael hears the car come from far away, in the quiet evening. He knows who it is immediately. It's not like a lot of people stop by to visit him. Isobel comes more than she used to, now that her empty house feels more like a prison than a home, but Max barely ever leaves Liz's side these days. And Maria almost never comes to him.

No, he's lying to himself. Him recognizing this particular car has nothing to do with how many people visit him.

Because the realization brings a wave of undefinable sadness with it, he doesn't stand up to open the door, and he waits for the knock instead.

It takes a long time to come. Michael can almost see Alex hesitate, stand by his car trying to convince himself this isn't a good idea−or maybe that it is. He doesn't know what Alex most needs to convince himself of these days. He doesn't know what Alex has been up to at all, really, in the two months that have passed since Caulfield.

And that's his own fault, of course. His own choice. He drove Alex away, because what they had was too intense for Michael, and he couldn't take care of his broken heart anymore. Alex may have been the one who kept saying it was over, but it was only over when Michael turned his back on him and looked somewhere else.

At least a minute has passed when Alex finally knocks. Michael hasn't moved. He could have sat back, just a little, enough to see him through the window, but he hasn't.

He stands up to open the trailer's door.

"Alex," he says, when he sees the other man look up at him. Alex's face looks neutral, emotionless, like it always does when he's having the strongest emotions. The negative ones, at least, because Michael can at least pride himself on making Alex smile.

Or could, anyway.

Alex doesn't say anything, but his eyes bore holes through Michael's pitiful try at a careless smile.

"Why are you here?" Michael asks, nodding him in. He may dread whatever conversation this will end up being, but that's not a reason to leave Alex standing outside, especially when the crutch has made a reappearance at Alex's side. Is he having trouble with his leg?

Alex hoists himself up the steps and yes, he's limping more than the last time Michael saw him. He stays standing awkwardly in the middle of the trailer. He looks tired, drawn. There are lines on his brow that weren't there two months ago.

"I've come to give you this," he holds out the package in his right hand.

"What is it?" Michael frowns. He takes the package and tears off the brown paper, carefully taped over a curved shape. The shine that comes through is one he immediately recognizes.

It's a part of the alien ship's console.

"Where did you find this?" Michael breathes.

"I didn't," Alex answers. "Jim Valenti did. It was...in his stuff."

"Why? Why would you give it to me?"

Alex blinks, sluggishly. "You're trying to get all the pieces, right?" he says like it's the obvious answer to Michael's question.

"Yeah, but...I didn't get the vibe from you that you approve."

"It doesn't matter if I approve," Alex shrugs. "It's what you want."

It hits Michael like a punch in the gut. It actually, physically hurts for a moment.

"So what _you _want doesn't matter, but what _I _want does?" he can't help point out, remembering Alex words from−what feels like an eternity ago, now. _We're not kids anymore. What I want doesn't matter._

Alex doesn't even try to deny it. He just hangs his head. "In Caulfield, you lost−" he makes a vague gesture, his voice breaking. "It was my fault. I know it's nothing in comparison, but I want you to have this, at least," he points to the console piece Michael put down on his desk.

"So you're trying to make amends? For what, Alex? How was it your fault?"

"Storming the facility like that was a terrible decision. I should have known better. I should have found the way to infiltrate it, identify the security measures beforehand. Maybe then it wouldn't have been destroyed."

Michael shakes his head. "I was the one who made the alarm go off," he says quietly. It's almost as if Alex trying to take the responsibility on his shoulders makes it hurt worse. "This isn't on you."

"I'm so sorry," Alex says. "We never talked about it, but I really am sorry."

Michael blinks away the tears that still−still−come far too easily when he thinks of that moment. It hurts. It really fucking hurts, and he hasn't known what to do with the pain other than drown it in booze and sex.

"Me too," he murmurs.

Alex makes a move with his free hand, as if to cup Michael's cheek, but he stops midway. He bites his lip and lets his hand fall back down.

"I should have−" he starts.

"Let's not do this," Michael cuts him off. He can't deal with what-ifs. He's spent countless hours wishing he hadn't triggered that alarm, that they'd gone out safely and found a way to free the aliens from the outside. Of course he has.

Alex nods. "I...I should go," he says, starting to turn away. His face is perfectly impassive, though his eyes are almost desperately hanging on to Michael's.

Michael chooses to listen to the eyes. "No, wait," he starts.

He doesn't even know what to say to make Alex stay. He longs for this physical proximity, the first time they've been so close in two months, but they've never been good at talking.

It's fully dark out now, the days shortening as winter approaches, and Alex looks far too tired for the long drive back to his cabin. Michael tells himself that that's what makes him grab Alex's arm to hold him back. If he can keep Alex here−

"How's...work?" he asks lamely. At least it makes Alex turn back to him in surprise.

"Work?"

"You know, I mean," Michael scrambles for something to back it up with. "I haven't seen you in two months, and there was all the stuff with your father−"

"My father can't exactly admit that I hacked into work that's not supposed to exist in the first place," Alex shrugs. "He's keeping to himself, for now. You don't have to worry about him."

"That's not why I was asking," Michael tilts his head.

"Then why?" Alex frowns.

"I don't know, I just...want to know what's going on in your life, I guess."

"Okay," Alex says doubtfully. He thinks for a moment, as if he can't think of anything worth telling about. "Well, I...I've reached the end of my enlistment period. I'm retiring."

"What are you gonna do?"

"Get back to civilian life," Alex shrugs. "I think I'll take some time for myself. I went straight back to work after getting out of rehab, but...I could really use some time to think. About who I am."

Michael raises an eyebrow. "Don't you know that? You've always known who you were, Alex. And you never realized what a privilege that is."

Alex looks away. "Is that how it looked to you?"

"I don't even know _what _I am," Michael says, almost angrily. "How my body works. How old I can live, how I'm going to age, where I come from, nothing. But you? You had it all figured out, Alex. We were seventeen, and you had the strongest sense of identity out of all of us. You never hid."

"But I did," Alex says. "My father literally shoved me back into the closet, and I hid. I pretended to be someone I wasn't for ten years in the Air Force. I wasn't gay out there. I wasn't Alex. I was Master Sergeant Manes's son. Never _me."_

"Welcome to my life, then," Michael spits.

Alex deflates, like he wasn't expecting that comment. He should have, Michael thinks. He had it coming.

"You know who you are," he adds more kindly, when Alex just stands there, looking lost.

"No," Alex shakes his head. "I know who my father wanted me to be. And I tried working against it, and I tried working toward it, and it all led me to the same place."

"Where is that?"

"Here. I was raised to believe that what I want doesn't matter, and I believed it. All this time, I've never lived for myself. Except when I was with you."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you're right, I never hid. Not with you." Alex opens his arms. His crutch almost hits Michael's desk. "Congratulations, Michael. You're the only person who actually knows me."

Michael blinks at the use of his first name. Alex hasn't called him anything but Guerin since he came back.

"But you said it, before," he tries. "We don't really know each other. We never talked."

Alex nods, and leans back on his crutch, wincing.

"That's why I need time," he says. "The other day when you told me about you, I realized I couldn't return the favor. I don't know who I am. I don't know what I like, or what I want to do. I don't have any dreams, not anymore."

Michael just stares at him.

"When I told you that when you look at me, I feel like I'm seventeen again… The reason why it hurts so much is because seventeen year old me would hate what I've become."

"A hero?"

Alex shakes his head. He doesn't elaborate, but Michael can see the shadow in his eyes. Of course, he thinks, his eyes going to the crutch. Alex may be held as a hero by the whole town, but he just spent most of ten years in a war zone. The marks that he bears just aren't the ones Michael expected.

What did he expect?

"You know, for...about two years after I enlisted, every time I closed my eyes, I'd see you," Alex says. Michael looks up at him again, frowning. Alex's whole demeanor has changed, his shoulders slumped instead of tense, his eyes staring through Michael, as if he doesn't even see him anymore. His voice is strangely monotone, almost robotic. "Sometimes it was feeling your mouth on mine or your smile when you came to the Emporium that day, and sometimes it was your scream when my father took that hammer to your hand. And it was painful and bitter and terrible, but I never wanted it to stop."

"But it faded," Michael guesses. It must have. It faded even for him, after a few years. Never completely, but his life wasn't all about Alex anymore.

"No," Alex shakes his head, suddenly animated by pure anguish. "It got replaced. There was...an armed drone, and a village, and I made the decision my country asked me to. I never saw you again after that."

He looks away, and Michael feels almost relieved, because the pain in his eyes has suddenly become unbearable.

The sudden confession takes him aback. Alex has talked more about himself, about his feelings, since he came through the door than in the ten years they've known each other combined, and he's done it all looking like a weight is crushing him. Michael can almost see the cracks, the dam breaking, in the frown lines on Alex's brow.

He has no idea what to do about it.

"I never saw you again until the high school reunion," Alex continues. "And then you came back. For a few blissful weeks, you were in my dreams again, Guerin. Just like before."

"And now?"

Alex sighs silently, his shoulders dropping again.

"Ever since I discovered what my father was doing...I saw your face on that terrorist poster, and it took me right back to Iraq." He looks straight at Michael, a new intensity in his eyes. "I still see you, Guerin, in my nightmares. Front and center, in the middle of all the people I killed. I see you fall under a drone strike on my screen, or bathing in your own blood in my father's shed. Every fucking night."

Michael takes a step back, involuntarily. Alex smiles at him, a bitter, terrifying smile. For a second there, he's unrecognizable.

Max once told him, after Michael made another girl run away just by talking about his childhood, that one sign of prolonged trauma is being unable to recognize that your experiences are even outside of the realm of normal. Shocking people without meaning to, because everyone must have gone through things like that, right?

"What happened to you, Alex?" Michael asks quietly, almost against himself.

He realizes as soon as it passes his lips that it's the wrong move. Alex retreats into himself immediately, pressing his right arm against his chest−the closest he can get to crossing his arm with his crutch still in his hand.

He doesn't answer.

"Alex, I−" Michael starts, but he doesn't even know where to go with this.

"Don't. I shouldn't have said that. Just forget it."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

Alex shakes his head, and runs a hand over his face. "Just let it go," he says. "It doesn't matter. I'm just...tired. Haven't been sleeping so well."

Because of the nightmares, Michael surmises. Which brings him back to the issue at hand. Michael's own nightmares are usually about Caulfield, these days, but they're not that frequent. Most nights he's too wasted to dream.

And Alex watches him die in his sleep every night?

The impulse to kiss him to make it all better is not the right one, Michael knows. They've been too good at using sex to avoid having to talk. That's not what Alex needs now, not when he's clearly barely awake enough to know what he's saying.

"Just how badly have you been sleeping?" Michael asks, watching him struggle to keep his eyes open.

He realizes that they've been talking for nearly an hour standing up. His leg must be killing him. Michael would be the first to admit that he doesn't know anything about Alex's injury, but even he can see that.

"It doesn't matter," Alex starts, shifting to stand taller, but his shoulders just slump back down.

"Come on," Michael says, stepping backward to his bed. He hopes Alex won't take it as an invite for anything sexual, but Alex just follows him without question, barely putting any weight on his leg. He drops down beside Michael on the bed−far enough that they're not even touching.

"How is it going with Maria?" Alex asks with no transition, like it matters right now. It's a really blatant change of subject at best, and quite possibly a self-destructive move, Michael thinks.

He's been trying to pretend that he's not hurting Alex with that, that Alex is the one who left, but he does feel guilty about it. It would be a good move on Alex's part to get him to stop thinking about how bad Alex looks−if Alex wasn't nearly shoving his exhaustion in his face. From this close, he really looks like death warmed over.

"It's just casual," Michael answers. "You know she doesn't want to hurt you."

"I'm not angry with her," Alex shrugs. "She owes me nothing, and you both make your own decisions."

"Does that mean you feel that _I _owe you something?"

Alex doesn't answer for a moment. When he does, it's with a shine in his eyes that Michael wishes he hadn't noticed.

"You don't owe me. If anything, I owe _you. _What my family did to yours and you is beyond all reparation, and the fact that I played a role in it myself makes me want to retch. And if you ever need something from me, I will do everything in my power to give it to you."

The declaration is grand and dramatic, and it would be ridiculous if Alex didn't so obviously believe every word of it. Michael almost wants to stop him, to forbid him from saying things like that. He can't bear to hear this pain and the selflessness that is so _Alex_ mixed up in his voice. They don't belong together.

Alex refused to leave Caulfield without him, even though he knew what was going to happen. Even though he probably knows exactly what standing in an explosion feels like. Michael's eyes stray down again to his missing leg, hidden by his pants.

"You don't−" he starts, but Alex stops him, raising a hand.

"I do. There's...one thing that you can do for me, though."

"Tell me," Michael says immediately, almost hungrily. There's been too much pain in Alex's eyes tonight. At this point, he'll do anything to relieve it.

"I need to know something." Alex hesitates, taking a breath. "I'll do anything for you, even if that's going away and never bothering you again. But I need to know if that's what you want. For me to leave Roswell."

Michael bites his lip. The part of him screaming at the thought of Alex leaving again is quite clear about what he wants, but it's the same part that Alex once awoke by giving him hope. The one he's been trying to squash ever since.

There's another part of him, a quieter one, that is somehow both pleased and horrified that Alex is even offering this.

"I don't want you to leave," Michael decides to go for the truth. Alex lets out a small gasp, like he hasn't been breathing until then. "But−"

But what? If things stay like they have been, is he just leading Alex on? Making him watch him with Maria is just not fair. But what is he supposed to do, drop everything for Alex?

"I won't ask anything of you," Alex says. "I just need to know where we stand."

"I won't lie, Alex," Michael says. "I want you. I've wanted you for so long. But the way we've been doing things is not right. We're just hurting each other."

Alex nods, waiting for more. He looks sad and determined, like he's already decided that Michael is going to ask him to leave anyway.

"You left too many times, and I can't go through that anymore. I can't watch you walk away again."

"Does that mean−" Alex frowns, confused.

"I don't want you to leave. But I don't want to go through that heartbreak _again_."

"So what do we do?"

Michael shrugs, his eyes never leaving Alex's.

"I don't know," he says. "Maybe there's just no solution that won't hurt both of us."

"Are we just going to keep doing this? Break each other's heart?" Alex asks. He buries his face in his hands briefly, and when he looks up at Michael again, the weariness in his face hurts. "It hurts to be apart, and it hurts to be together, because I keep...waiting for the other shoe to drop, for you to say that you never really wanted me, or for my father to show up. It's easier to walk away than to−"

"Wait until you get hurt again?" Michael finishes for him.

"Yeah," Alex admits, looking down at his knees.

"I really do want you, Alex. But I also want what you want."

Alex looks up, trying to keep tears from falling.

"I haven't known what I want in a long time."

"Then maybe we could try to find that out together," Michael offers softly.

Alex looks at him like Michael is his whole world again, and Michael realizes just how much he's missed that. Seeing that he can be important to someone.

Important to Alex.

It's the most wonderful feeling in the world, Michael decides here and there, like he did once ten years ago, in a shed behind Jesse Manes's house.

The moment doesn't last long, but it fills Michael's heart enough for a while.

"I think I'd like that," Alex says softly. His voice sounds almost like a child.

"We can take it slow," Michael says, hit by how simultaneously young and old Alex looks in his exhaustion.

Alex nods and tries to hide a yawn.

"You can sleep here," Michael offers. "You're not driving back in this state."

"I don't−"

"You're not bothering me, Alex. You're never going to bother me."

"Okay," Alex yawns again. He can't seem to stop, now that he's let himself relax enough.

"Lie down," Michael says a little daringly, glad that Alex isn't resisting more than this. Alex obeys without even questioning him, which says something of just how tired he is.

Of course, there's only one, single bed in the trailer. What is their level of intimacy, once you remove the sex-instead-of-talking part? Michael can't remember them sharing a truly open, honest kiss, not since that blissful week ten years ago. Not since Jesse Manes took a hammer to his hand.

Alex grabs his hand now, unbidden, and caresses the scars. He's already half asleep on the bed, fully clothed but loosing his grasp on the waking world. Michael gently takes his hand back and starts to unlace Alex's left boot, then works on keeping him awake long enough to remove his prosthetic. He doesn't want to risk making a wrong move. Alex rolls up his pant leg and undoes the clasps and removes the socks almost automatically, without even opening his eyes, letting Michael set the leg aside for him.

"You good?" Michael murmurs.

Alex nods sleepily. "Sorry," he breathes.

"Don't apologize. You need the sleep."

Michael stays sitting on the edge of the bed for a long time, just watching Alex sleep. When his own eyes start to droop, and he realizes it's over midnight, he kicks off his own shoes and lies down beside Alex, cramming into the single bed. Alex turns in his sleep and pulls Michael closer, curling up in his arms. Michael smiles sleepily, and drifts off almost immediately.

* * *

Sunlight is coming through the Airstream windows when Michael wakes up. He's still cuddled close to Alex, nearly squishing him against the wall of the trailer. He looks up to see Alex is awake, looking back at him. He seems better−not rested exactly, he still has bags under his eyes and too many lines on his forehead, but at least he's stopped looking like he's going to topple over at any moment.

"Did you sleep well?" Michael asks, blinking to get used to the light. Thankfully, he has nowhere to be today, because a glance at his clock tells him it's almost ten. He hasn't woken so late without a hangover in years.

Alex nods. "Better than I have in a while," he admits, though he doesn't quite look at Michael while saying that.

"Good," Michael smiles. "We need to do this more often, then."

Alex laughs softly. "Maybe we could find a larger bed, though," he says, trying to sit up. His point is proven when he hits his elbow on the wall with a thud. "Ouch."

Michael stands up to give him space. Out of pure habit, he avoid the three boots and one prosthetic leg lying haphazardly on the floor and rubs his eyes. On his desk, he notices the iridescent glass of the console piece. He'd almost forgotten about that.

"It does matter," he says, turning back to face Alex.

"What?" Alex frowns, taken by surprise.

"Your approval. For the...space ship. I don't want to do this against you."

Alex looks away. He busies himself putting his prosthetic back on, physically retreating from Michael. When he looks up at him again, there's a shine in his eyes.

"I don't think I can give you that, Guerin," he says. "Don't ask me to help you leave Earth forever."

Michael shrugs. "It won't be today, or tomorrow. Even if I do get all the pieces, it's a very long term project."

But Alex shakes his head. "I've loved you for ten years. You really think I won't still love you in another ten years?"

Michael feels the knot in his throat come back, but it's different from earlier. He's never been good at identifying his emotions, but he knows this one.

"I love you too," he murmurs.

* * *

There we go!

Did you like it? Please tell me what you think!

You can also find me on Tumblr at theemmaarthur where I write and draw and reblog gifsets, mostly. I'd love to interact more with the fandom and get to know people, so don't hesitate to talk to me!


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